


under cover

by hydrochaeris



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Chowder is a Good Boyfriend, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, the title should be taken very literally
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-09-27 18:41:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10039022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hydrochaeris/pseuds/hydrochaeris
Summary: Nursey wasn't at team breakfast today. Or yesterday or the day before that.





	

**Author's Note:**

> so here's my attempt at solidifying chowder's voice and not making it sound so much like nursey's! probably less metaphors would help with that, but you can pry poetry/coding parallels from my cold dead hands.

Sunlight is filtering through fluttering leaves outside the kitchen window. The light gray shadows move on the table with the wind. Everything is shifting. The trees, the time, his fingers where they’re lying on the knee of his jeans. Chris thinks that’s how everything is all the time. He has a lot of trouble figuring it out, but he thinks it’s more of a cycle, a gradual growth, than any sort of linear thing. An infinite loop in Java that changes itself ever so slightly with each run but still doesn’t end.

And then there are pockets, like if-then or if-else statements. Pockets that are tucked away, that can be drawn out through making the right choice.

Chris thinks about this more freely now that he’s with Nursey. The thoughts used to come unbidden and he would blurt them out and be ridiculed. So he sticks to the safe, fun truths now. Being around Nursey is like. Like he doesn’t have to be judged for who he is. Like he doesn’t always have to be the ray of light in everyone’s life. Like he’s allowed to have thoughts and feelings that aren’t aggressively positive, but quiet and introspect.

These thoughts, though, aren’t unbidden. Here’s a not-so-fun truth: he’s kind of been forcing himself to think them. Because Nursey wasn’t at team breakfast today. Or yesterday or the day before that. And Chris is worried. Like, he’s probably fine, right? So if Chris walks out to his dorm and knocks on the door and sees if he’s doing okay, and he is doing okay, then he’s intruding. And this relationship—it’s really, really good. Brand new, too. Or it isn’t, it’s been happening for awhile, it just feels all shiny and delicate, something precious and a little tentative. He doesn’t want to fuck with that.

But now that he’s allowing himself to think about Nursey again his brain literally will not shut off. A thousand different scenarios are rushing through his mind, none of them particularly upbeat or likely.

A hand brushes his shoulder, and he jumps.

“Hey.”

“Oh hey Lards!”

“Doing good, Chow? You’ve been staring out the window for half an hour.” Her words are firm and solid like she knows what he’s been thinking about, but he knows she doesn’t. Lardo isn’t clairvoyant. She just doesn’t like to mince words, and it can come across as blunt and observant when Chris knows she doesn’t know what’s going on any more than anyone else does.

“Yeah! I’m great, how are you?”

She smiles at that, which confirms that she knows nothing. “Good.” It could either be a response to him saying he’s great or to his actual question. “See you at practice tomorrow.”

She moves on, and Chris collects his elbows and wrists from underneath his chin, stretching them out from their previously folded up position.

He really needs to talk to Nursey. Shit.

 _is it cool if I come over? You’re in your dorm right?_ he texts, hitting send quickly and almost leaping out of his chair in shock when he sees the gray bubbles come up instantly. Like maybe Nursey was waiting for him to text.

 _yup. see u_ is the reply.

Chris takes a deep breath, runs his hand through his bangs, and shakes himself like a ghost ran through his body. No more excuses. He’s gonna go see Nursey.

-

The door is shut when he arrives. Chris hesitates only a little before knocking a few times. No reply. He’s not really in the mood to wait for anything ever, especially something he’s set his mind to doing after putting it off forever, so after maybe twenty more seconds he twists the knob and finds it opens easily.

Chris slides the door open quietly and shuts it soft behind him, clicking the lock into place. There’s a huge lump of blankets on Nursey’s bed, and when he says “Nursey?” they move the littlest bit.

“Hey, I’m gonna come sit with you, okay?” he says, sliding off his shoes and leaving them by the door before going over to climb up on the bed. “You made a tent here, that’s kinda cool. Can I come in?”

A massive shuffling of blanket later and Chris is underneath them facing Nursey, who isn’t looking at him. There’s nothing but muted natural light in the dorm room, but he can still see the outline of his boyfriend there, phone screen beside him open to their latest texts.

“What do you—” he starts to say, but Nursey is already reaching between them for Chris’s arms, pulling them from his sides and wrapping them around Nursey’s torso. “Oh okay okay c’mere.”

He arranges them with some awkwardness since it’s still difficult to see under all the blankets. Eventually Chris ends up backing against the wall and stretching his legs out so Nursey can curl between them, his back hunched concave against Chris’s stomach.

“That good?” he says softly, absently pulling a blanket so it’s between his back and the wall. “I’m here if you wanna talk, I dunno, just tap my leg or something if I get annoying and should stop.”

Nursey mumbles something in the direction of Chris’s right arm. His head is heavy against Chris’s chest, listing toward his ribcage like it’s too much effort to keep upright.

“Sorry, I didn’t hear?”

“Not annoying,” Nursey says a little more distinctly. “But don’t talk yet,” he adds, voice gaining volume. It’s scratchy and tired sounding. Chris ghosts a hand over Nursey’s arm before deciding to lay it on Nursey’s side. Nursey pushes into the contact ever so slightly, and Chris looks down at him and _really_ wants to kiss him. Later.

“This’s gonna happen sometimes.” Nursey’s voice sounds like he’s reciting a poem that he doesn’t actually care about, almost mocking himself but not quite putting in the effort that that’d take. “So like. You know how all your days are really fast and you tell me how they blend together and stuff and everything’s on autopilot. I can get those too but not really often. When I get a bad day, for me, it’s like, everything is blurred like you said, but slow blurred and I can’t make myself do anything really. Um.” He blinks, and Chris puts his other hand on Nursey’s face, cradling him. “It’s good you texted. Because also, uh, on these days, I feel like, worthless? And like no one wants me around. And that just makes me move even less so it doesn’t help. But you—you helped. Are helping. Thanks.”

“Can I talk now?” Chris asks, and he feels the vibrations of Nursey’s chest as he laughs silently.

“I love you.”

“Oh—”

“Sorry ignore that you can talk,” Nursey says all in a rush. Chris leans over and brushes his lips on Nursey’s cheekbone.

“I love you too. Idiot.”

He can feel Nursey’s face crinkle in a smile.

“Oh. Okay. Sorry. I interrupted.”

Chris straightens back up, reluctantly putting distance between their faces. “I’m glad I can help. But like if I ever do something that makes it worse you gotta tell me that too. Please don’t just take it and not say shit and then I won’t know if you’re actually okay and how to make you feel better. Or as best you can like this, anyway. I didn’t even know you owned this many blankets.”

“I keep them under the bed.”

“Makes sense. Okay, also, can we take them off now if that’s okay? I feel like they’re gonna collapse on us at any second here. Moving around disrupted the infrastructure and—”

“Jeez, just say you wanna kiss me,” Nursey gripes, pushing the covers off and squinting up Chris while he helps. “Also, obviously this isn’t good for everyone like this, but the physical contact thing is really good for me. I forget that I, um. Need it.”

Blankets all shoved aside, Chris shifts so he’s lying front to Nursey’s back and curling around him, arms over Nursey’s torso.

“Well that’s great news. Because the two things I’m best at are stopping pucks and cuddling.”

“Damn straight,” Nursey says, and turns in Chris’s grasp to kiss him. “Ugh. Now that you know I love you, can I keep chirping you with mild repercussions, or are you gonna hold it over my head forever that you asked me if you could talk and I immediately blurted out my feelings?”

“What do you think?” Chris says. He runs his hand up and down Nursey’s spine and watches as his head falls, fitting perfectly between Chris’s neck and shoulder.

“I think you should never chirp me ever again and we should fall asleep like this.”

Chris rolls his eyes. He’s glad Nursey can’t see how soft he felt his face get when he suggested falling asleep in Chris’s arms. Mostly because he remembered that Nursey’s said he has issues falling asleep in strange, unfamiliar places. Anywhere he doesn’t feel safe enough.

“Well, we can do one of those things.”

“I’m so glad you’re never chirping me again, you’re the best boyfriend,” Nursey says into Chris’s collarbone.

“To quote Derek Nurse, like five minutes ago, immediately after Chris Chow asked him for permission to speak, ‘I love you.’”

“Weak chirp. Poor execution. Zero out of ten. I say it’s love’s fault for taking away your chirping skills.”

“Really? Because the last I checked, that’s what love _birds_ do.”

Nursey lolls his head up to stare Chris directly in the eye. “I take it back. I hate you.”

“Fine, I’m leaving.”

“No fuck you don’t go.” Nursey cuddles in closer, crowding Chris more into the wall.

“You’re lucky I love you,” Chris says, frowning.

“I know,” Nursey says, vulnerable. “I am.”

Chris wants this pocket of time here, with Nursey’s curls falling into his own bangs and their noses just shy of touching and Nursey’s eyes open and honest and his arms around the boy he loves, when he feels slow and present and real, to last forever.

 

**Author's Note:**

> nursey, curling up under twenty blankets clutching his phone, seeing chowder texted him: shit shit shit gotta make myself presentable gotta get up for chris  
> nursey, moving at the speed of a snail in molasses, managing to get himself upright under the blankets: uhhh good enough
> 
> [reblog here on tumblr!](http://wholsomholsom.tumblr.com/post/157877963081/under-cover)


End file.
